Performance evaluation of power control algorithm for TV White Space resource in UK

Abstract

The digital switchover plan in the UK, expected to be completed in 2012, is capable of freeing up a total of about 240MHz TV bandwidth. This includes the license-exempt access to TV White Spaces (TVWS) as defined in IEEE 802.22 standards for Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN). In our previous studies [12], a simulation model based on the existing keep-away region algorithm is first established and verified to explore the potential TVWS resources with the Cognitive Radio technology at any given location in the UK. Then, the newly proposed power control algorithm based on the maximum allowed transmission power is to replace the keep-away region algorithm and improve the availability of a cognitive radio (CR) operation. In this paper, both of these two algorithms' performances are evaluated and compared with the results obtained from Digital UK [13] and a third-party company Wolfbane [14]. Finally, the correctness of the proposed power-control algorithm is validated and proved to have a better performance than the traditional keep-away region algorithm in terms of numbers of available channels. Finally, a comparison between these two algorithms is made in terms of system capacity.